Roses Are Red
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: Grimmons. After season 8 but before season 9, during the year Wash led the Blue Team and Church searched inside the memory unit for Tex. Simmons had been coming apart at the seams for a long time. Grif doesn't notice there's a problem until it's almost too late.
1. Episode 1

**Roses Are Red**

_Roses are red_

_Violets are blue_

_Someday we'll cruise down Blood Gulch Avenue_

* * *

Episode 1: The Blue Red

* * *

Lately Grif had been noticing a disturbing pattern. The conversations he had with Simmons while they stood outside and pretended to guard the base were pretty much the same as ever...except that the topic of suicide kept creeping in.

"I don't see why we have to stand out here and look tough when we know they aren't going to attack us," Grif said. "This thing between us is pretty much over. I mean, Donut and Caboose are friends now for Christ's sake. You'd think we could call a truce."

"Yeah," Simmons said gloomily.

"They sneak over to each other's rooms and have sleepovers anyway," Grif said.

"Yeah."

"Must be nice to view the war through their eyes," Grif said.

"Yeah."

Grif glanced at him. "You okay?"

"I'll assume based on our previous conversations that is a rhetorical question," Simmons said.

"Not if I understand what a rhetorical question is," Grif said. "That's the kind of question that nobody answers, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I want an answer," Grif said. "Are you alright?"

"No." Simmons hung his head.

"Okay...why are you not alright?"

"Why do you care?" Simmons asked.

"Well, I don't," Grif said automatically. He couldn't start talking about feelings and caring if he wanted to keep Simmons from finding out how he felt. Namely, that he'd had a crush on Simmons ever since they first wound up in a box canyon with nothing to do all day. "But I asked, so I want an answer."

"All I want is someone to care," Simmons said. A spark of anger seemed to go off. He straightened. "But no. You're all assholes. I could die, and the most Sarge would say is, 'Why'd he have to mess up my perfect score?'"

"I keep telling you, that is the worst impression I've ever heard."

Simmons just took a deep breath and kept on going. "Nobody likes me anyway. I may as well kill myself. It can't be teamkilling if I kill myself, can it? That doesn't count. If I kill myself then it doesn't tarnish our record. So far the Red Team doesn't have any teamkills. That means we're winning."

"If we're winning, why are you going to kill yourself?" Grif asked.

Simmons stiffened. "Don't you listen to anything I say?"

"Nope," Grif said, unable to resist.

"Fucking – you just – ahh – grr. I knew it. I knew it was useless to talk to you."

"You're not going to kill yourself anyway," Grif said reasonably. "You don't have a plan."

"I'll make one!" Simmons yelled, his voice cracking. He ran.

Grif snorted. "Yeah, whatever, Simmons."

All the same, he had an uneasy feeling that something was different. The feeling that maybe falling back on 'Yeah, whatever, Simmons,' wasn't the right answer. "How can that not be the right answer?" Grif asked himself. "That always works. That's my go-to."

Behind him, Lopez said something in monotone Spanish.

Grif ignored him.

**xXx**

Three weeks later the conversation circled back around to the same place.

Grif had been waiting in their typical guard position for four hours. "I wonder where Simmons is."

Lopez asked him something.

Grif sighed. "Look. I can't understand you."

Typically, Lopez just spoke a totally different thing.

Grif shook his head. "I still don't -"

Simmons ran up, seeming to appear out of nowhere. "I have a plan. Now you can't say I won't kill myself, because I am!"

"Where have you been?" Grif demanded. "You know I hate standing out here by myself."

"I was finishing my suicide note," Simmons said defensively. "I needed the room to myself. So I waited until you were out here, and then I went in there, and I -" He turned and glared at Lopez. "Will you give me a minute?"

Lopez said something and walked away.

Simmons turned to Grif with wounded dignity. "As I was saying, I finished my suicide note. You have to promise to burn it after you read it. I don't want Sarge looking at it. He's not supposed to know that I killed myself. I want him to still respect me after I die."

"I am way too used to you temporarily freaking out and then calming down again to believe you," Grif said. "I think writing that suicide note got it all out of your system, and now you're just looking for attention."

That stopped Simmons cold. Momentarily. Then he protested, "I do have a plan. I've thought about it for weeks and it's perfect. All I need is to speak to Lopez and I'm done."

"Alright, let's hear this perfect plan," Grif said resignedly. "Apparently I can't shut you up by pointing out how stupid this is, so I might as well ask for what I'm going to hear anyway."

Simmons let out a long sigh and hung his head. "I'm going to take off my armor and ask Lopez to run me over with the jeep. He'll do it. He hates me. It'll look like a terrible accident. That way Sarge -" His voice hitched. He started over. "That way Sarge doesn't have to know. Suicide is a sin. Sarge is a very religious man. He probably wouldn't even bury me if he knew."

Grif stared at him. "That's pretty dark."

"Life is dark." Simmons nodded to himself and squared his shoulders. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go change into my jammies. When Lopez runs me over I want to be comfortable."

Not knowing what else to do, and choking down laughter at that bizarre image, Grif desperately stuttered, "Yeah, whatever, Simmons."

"Hmph." Simmons dropped his gun and marched off.

Grif turned and watched Simmons enter the base. "He can't be serious." Even so, he watched the base and waited for Simmons to come out.

Sure, his back was to the Blues, but he didn't really think they'd attack. They might steal the flag again. But they wouldn't try to kill anyone. With Washington leading the unit they didn't need to. Half the time the Red team didn't even see it happen. They'd just get a call on their radios that their flag had been ransomed.

Just when Grif's attention span wandered, Simmons came back out. Grif immediately snapped back to the present. "What the..."

Simmons was out of his armor and wearing pajamas. Blue pajamas. Grif knew those pajamas; those were the ones with green and red dinosaurs on them. The first time he saw his teammate in them and tried to make fun of a grown man wearing dinosaur pajamas, Simmons had condescendingly corrected, "They're stegosaurs and tyrannosaurus rexes, dumbass."

Grif shook his head in disbelief. Then he saw movement in the corner of his eye and snapped around. "Oh, no."

Lopez was driving back from patrol in the jeep, headed straight towards the base. Simmons saw Lopez coming and didn't alter his course.

Grif ran. "Simmons! Simmons, wait!"

"You'll be sorry," Simmons said with a familiar misanthropic glee. "You'll all be sorry."

Grif skidded in front of him and blocked his path. "Stop!"

"What do you care?" Simmons stared for a moment. When that didn't produce results, he made as if to go around.

Grif grabbed his arm before he could turn away. "Because I like you. And I don't like people I like killing themselves. You don't fool around with suicide. I was stupid to let this go on for as long as it did."

Simmons almost fell over. "But – But how can you like me? You're always ignoring me."

"How can I ignore you?" Grif snorted. "You never shut up."

"But I – You call me a kissass!"

"That's because you are," Grif said.

Simmons stewed in silence for a moment. Then he said, his voice heightening with insecurity, "You're putting me on. This is a joke. You're making fun of me. Well, stop it, Grif. It's not funny."

Grif heaved a sigh. "I'm not making fun of you, dumbass. I'm trying to tell you that I like you."

"Really?" Simmons' voice was painfully hopeful.

"Yes," Grif said.

"You like me? You mean you're not just putting up with me because we're stuck at the same outpost and we're on the same team and we share a room together? You really like me?" Simmons spoke almost too quickly to understand.

"Yeah," Grif said with a grin in his voice.

Simmons was totally off his game now. He stammered, "Well, I – I'm sorry I said I never respected you, and...stuff."

"That's okay," Grif said. "I never respected you either. I just like you."

Simmons let out a slightly hysterical laugh. "This is the best day of my life. Somebody finally likes me."

Grif patted his shoulder. "I liked you the whole time. If I didn't, I wouldn't let you find me when I go someplace to take a nap. I make it easy on you."

"What is this, a pajama party?" a familiar, grating voice interjected.

Grif and Simmons turned.

Sarge stood twelve feet away waiting for the jeep.

Lopez pulled up and stopped. He gave Simmons a featureless stare and said something.

"You sound suspiciously disappointed for a guy who can't change his voice to reflect his feelings," Grif said.

Lopez said something else.

"I said, why are you in your pajamas?" Sarge asked. He stared at Simmons with his usual level of confusion and obliviousness to everything around him.

Grif started angrily, "Because he -"

"Got heat stroke and decided to go to bed," Simmons interrupted in a thin voice.

"Oh. Should I get Doc?" Sarge asked.

"You mean you actually care?" Simmons asked quickly.

"Of course I care! If you die, you'll mess up my record." Sarge puffed out his chest. "No deaths under my command. That's a streak I wanna keep going."

"Don't bother," Simmons said, hanging his head. "Doc can't practice medicine anyway. He'd probably just kill me by accident and spoil your record, sir."

"Good thinking! I should ask Doc to take a look at Grif. " Sarge hopped in the jeep. "Anyway, adios, boys! It's my turn to patrol. Heh heh." He drove away.

Lopez trudged off.

Simmons' expression hardened. "I don't want him to care about me anymore anyway. The stupid bastard."

"That's a lie, isn't it?" Grif asked.

Simmons pouted. "No."

Grif waited.

Simmons sighed and hung his head again. "Yeah. I don't think I'll ever stop wanting him to approve of me."

Grif smiled and placed his hand on Simmons' shoulder. "Good. Because it would be too weird for me if you changed your mind now. I wouldn't know what to think."

"Do you really like me?" Simmons asked.

"Yeah." Grif squeezed his shoulder. "I really do."

"Okay. Then I guess I won't kill myself yet. I guess I'll – I guess I'll go put my armor back on." Simmons made it sound like the last thing he wanted to do.

Grif grinned at him. "Careful. You're beginning to sound like me. I won't stand for two Dexter Grifs around here. I've got the job market cornered."

Simmons managed a smile and a little bit of hustle as he walked back inside the base. When Simmons came out wearing that familiar maroon armor, Grif was more relieved than he could say. They walked back to their posts and stood side by side, like they always ought to. Only now Grif knew his sense of serenity was way more fragile than he thought.


	2. Episode 2

Episode 2: Resurface

* * *

Everything was pretty normal for a week. Agent Washington stole the flag and extorted supplies from the Red team. Grif talked with Simmons about what powers they would have if they were Freelancers; Simmons insisted that all known powers were out because they already belonged to people, so they spent the day coming up with increasingly ridiculous powers for each other to own. Finally Sarge had to yell at them to shut up because they were arguing over dinner.

Then, while they were outside in the sun 'standing guard' the next day, the conversation rolled around to what happened.

"Thanks," Simmons said in a low voice.

Grif glanced at him, startled. "For what?"

"Thanks for saving my life." Simmons immediately ruined that statement by adding in a lofty tone, "That would have been a great tragedy for everyone involved. My destiny and the destinies of everyone around me would have been cruelly cut short as a promising young man turned his back on his potential. I'm going to do great things someday. I can feel it."

"I'd disagree, but I'm afraid you're going to try to kill yourself again," Grif said wryly. "Are you really feeling any better?"

Simmons was totally taken aback. "You – You care about my feelings?"

"Well, yeah." Grif wasn't sure where the confusion was coming from.

"Does that mean we talk about stuff?" Simmons asked eagerly.

Grif stared at him. "Huh?"

Simmons squirmed. "I mean, like..." He mumbled quickly, "Feelings and stuff."

"Oh." Grif was stunned. "Yeah. Sure. I guess." Then he recovered and grinned behind his helmet. "I've got feelings and stuff. We can both talk about our feelings."

"You do?" Simmons was astounded. "You mean it?"

"Everybody has feelings," Grif said.

Simmons sniffled.

"You didn't really think you were the only guy in the universe with feelings, did you?" Grif asked.

Simmons looked away. "My dad always said I was...sensitive." His voice had taken on that telltale plaintive, whimpering edge.

"Everybody's sensitive about something," Grif advised him.

Simmons retorted in a rapidfire burst, "My dad said I was sensitive about everything!"

Grif laid his hand on Simmons' shoulder. He muttered in a low voice, "It's okay, man. Let it out. It's killing you to keep it in."

Simmons sobbed like a dam breaking, jerking with the force of it. "My dad left when I was ten because of me. Mom cried all night. She didn't even make dinner. And it was because of me. All her boyfriends thought I was a nerd and a kissass, just like everybody else. I tried to get tougher, but that just got me in trouble. Every time I got in trouble for picking fights or not letting guys push me around she got sadder. Until she died, too. I'm all alone, Grif. I'm all alone. Even if I get out of here I've got nothing to go back to. If I hadn't been drafted I'd be on the street." The sobs petered out to whimpers. He trembled, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. "What am I going to do? This war can't last forever. Then I'm history. I'll die."

Grif grabbed him and steered him towards the base. "Whoa. The first thing you're going to do is go inside and take off your helmet before you drown. Then we'll get you some tissues, and we'll talk this over in our room for real." He felt a little like Donut, but that was only because Donut cared about other people. The only person he'd cared about for a long time was his sister. So this feeling was pretty weird. He'd be upset if he couldn't help.

"Okay."

They got back to their room without anyone stopping them, which was a relief. Not exactly a surprise, though, since Sarge was with Lopez repairing things and Donut was somewhere private so that he could write in his diary. Still, this would've been real awkward if they had been stopped in the hall while Simmons' eyes were streaming.

Simmons used up an entire roll of toilet paper from the bathroom getting his nose and eyes under control. Grif was glad he'd thought about the mess and brought a trashcan. They sat side by side on the same bed.

"Okay. What do we do now?" Simmons' voice still cracked and wobbled, but at least he was talking at a normal pace.

Grif patted his back. "We talk. We'll dump the evidence in the incinerator later. No one has to know."

Simmons looked at him in surprise. "Thanks."

Grif yanked off his helmet and tossed it on his bed with a grunt. "No problem. Now let's talk face to face, like regular people."

"Well...okay. Do you want me to start at the beginning again?"

"Sure."

Simmons looked at the ceiling. "My dad was always the one who punished me, ever since I can remember. Every time I got out of line, he was there to straighten me out. He was a lot like Sarge, except Sarge never beats me. My ass, my back, my face. Everything was fair game. He made sure I did a lot of sports, too, so no one ever found out, but nobody on any of my teams liked me. They knew I wasn't there because I liked to play."

"Simmons, that's...awful." Grif didn't know what to say.

Simmons snorted with a soft laugh. "Yeah. I guess it is. But I always seemed to deserve it. I was never good enough to avoid a punishment. My grades weren't high enough, my room wasn't clean enough, I forgot to thank my mom for making me breakfast. It was always something. One time he punished me for drawing a dragon. He said dragons are made up and I shouldn't be wasting my time. Then he took my picture and fed it down the shredder. I cried, so he punished me again."

"Sheesh. What an asshole."

Simmons shook his head. "I wasn't allowed to have any girly feelings. I could get mad and punch stuff, or I could feel competitive and want to win, but anything else was a girly feeling. Especially crying or being scared."

"Everybody's afraid of stuff," Grif said. "Everybody except really stupid people. And you're smart. So it makes sense that you would be afraid of a lot of stuff. You know there's a lot to be afraid of."

Simmon stared at him.

"Hey, I never contested the fact that you're smart," Grif said. "You're way smarter than me. You're probably the smartest person on both teams combined."

Simmons gave him a wavering smile.

"Is there anything else about your dad I ought to know?" Grif asked.

"When I was four, my dad told me Santa Claus wasn't real, and when my mom objected, he said that they shouldn't have to buy me presents to cover for a fat bastard who doesn't exist anyway," Simmons said matter-of-factly.

Grif eyed him warily. "Please tell me you still got presents every year."

"Oh, I got presents," Simmons said.

Grif let out his breath in relief.

Simmons said, "I just never got anything I asked for. One year I asked for a microscope, and my dad got me a football. The next year I asked for a model of a styracosaurus, and I got weights. And the year after that, I asked for a copy of Star Wars the original trilogy and got a pair of track shoes."

"I get the picture," Grif said wryly.

"Yeah...Dad really was a bastard," Simmons sighed.

"Feeling better?" Grif asked.

"A little."

Grif nodded. "You look less like you're going to give yourself an aneurysm now." He grinned. "Anyway, if you're really worried about what you're going to do when we all go home, don't be. You can stay with me. I'm going to need a roommate to help pay the rent anyway."

"You mean it?" Simmons demanded.

Grif nodded again, still grinning. "Yup. It's you and me, buddy." He held out his fist.

Simmons tapped his own fist against Grif's awkwardly.

Grif shook his head. "Man. I am going to have to teach you how to do that better. I don't want people making fun of you."

"You don't?" Simmons stared at him.

"No. You're my friend. The only one who can make fun of you is me."

Simmons gave him a smile even more awkward than his fist bump. Grif felt his stomach twist and his heart flop. He gave Simmons a one-armed hug before he could talk himself out of it. Simmons hugged him back so tightly that he would've been smothered if they weren't wearing armor. "Thanks, Grif. I owe you one, buddy."

"No problem," Grif said.

Except it was a problem. The problem was, the feelings that he'd made go away with oreos and apathy surfaced again after years of peaceful inactivity. Simmons hugging him this way made his brain, the stupid part of his brain, thinking that he might have a chance. He didn't have a chance. He was fat, and ugly, and hated any kind of work. That made him Simmons' polar opposite. There was no way opposites actually attracted. That was a dumb thing to say, and he wanted to know who'd said it first so he could go back in time and punch them in the mouth.


	3. Episode 3

Episode 3: Tested

* * *

Grif was still thinking about that hug three days later. It haunted him. "I don't deserve it," he mumbled. He walked through the hall of the base. Simmons had gotten up at least two hours before him. Instead of kicking him awake or throwing something at him, Simmons had just left. "All this consideration is getting weird."

Donut popped out from a side hall. "Good morning!"

Grif grunted. "Good morning."

"You seem upset," Donut said.

"This is all I need," Grif muttered. "Donut thinking I'm upset."

"Well, aren't you?" Donut asked.

Grif sighed. "Yeah...but you wouldn't understand."

"Aw, why not?" Donut asked. "Let me try to understand, at least. I care about you. You're a teammate and a friend."

"See? This is what I mean." Grif raised his hands. "Talking about feelings comes easily to you."

"It didn't always," Donut said. "Remember when I first came to live here? I was a very different man. I'd suppressed all of my feelings of confusion and unfilfillment for my whole life. It took seeing myself in light red armor all day and telling people it looked pink to help unlock my feelings."

"It is pink," Grif said. "You can't be all the way 'unlocked' if you still have a problem admitting you're pink."

"Why don't you stop by after work and talk with me and Doc?" Donut suggested.

"Doc? Why would I want to talk to Doc?"

"He's a certified therapist," Donut said. "I know he really helped me with some of my lingering feelings of shame."

"Not enough to stop calling yourself light red, though," Grif couldn't resist pointing out.

"Actually, Doc agrees," Donut said cheerfully. "He says I'm an unusually astute judge of color. But I don't mind anymore when you guys call me pink. Doc says men have trouble distinguishing between different shades of red. Men see about three or four shades of red, and that's it. Isn't that interesting?"

"So what does that say about you?" Grif asked.

"I don't want to go into it," Donut said soothingly. "This talk should be all about you."

Grif groaned. "I thought we weren't having a talk until after work."

"I didn't want to leave you in this kind of pain for that long," Donut said.

Grif looked at him flatly. "It's okay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Grif turned away and walked towards the exit of the base. "I really can't talk anymore. You're going to make me late for patrol with Simmons."

xXx

After spending the day with a version of Simmons who wanted to make small talk about feelings and childhood memories, Grif actually looked forward to escaping into Doc's house for a while.

"What am I getting myself into?" Grif wailed. "I lived my whole life never getting attached to anybody. It was safe. All I needed were snack cakes and good places to hide. This sucks!"

"Legitimizing your friendship with Simmons is a positive development," Doc said. "Friends are good for your mental health. You need them to function properly. Friends play a major role in making sure you're happy and fulfilled well into old age."

"What am I, a vampire?" Grif demanded. "I'm not friends with Simmons so I can live to be a hundred."

"Oh, a hundred is a modest goal in this day and age," Doc said with a tolerant chuckle in his voice. "Why don't you shoot for two hundred?"

"I thought you were already friends with Simmons," Donut said.

"Well, kind of, but..." Grif deflated. "Never mind. Why am I talking to you guys, anyway?"

"We offered you food," Donut reminded him brightly.

Grif perked up. "Oh, yeah. Organic, too."

"That's right," Doc said proudly.

"Do you think you guys could grow pineapple?"

Doc assessed their surroundings. "I don't know..."

"Why do you want us to grow pineapples?" Donut asked with cheerful curiosity.

Grif gave him half a smile and looked away. "Nothing. No reason. I just miss having pineapple for every meal, that's all."

"You used to have pineapple for every meal?"

Grif shrugged. "I'm from Hawaii. That's what you do. We put pineapple on everything."

"Oh, like the pizza," Donut said.

Grif snorted and nodded. "Yeah. Like the pizza."

"I love Hawaiian pizza." Donut beamed.

"Pineapple is very good for you," Doc said approvingly. He paused, confused. "But if you like healthy food so much, why did you eat nothing but snack cakes for so long?"

Grif laughed. "I didn't eat pineapple because it was healthy. I ate it because it tastes good. Snack cakes taste good, too. And oreos. Mmm."

Doc sighed. "I ought to put you on a diet, but I know you'd ignore me."

"Damn right," Grif said happily. "No one tells me what to put in my stomach but me."

"That's my philosophy, too," Donut said. "Only instead of 'stomach', I say -"

"No. Don't say it."

Doc placed the salad bowl between them on the table. "Now, don't use too much dressing. Then it won't be healthy for you."

Grif promptly smothered his salad in ranch.

Doc sighed again.

xXx

That night, it was too hot to sleep in their room. Simmons went looking for a fan, first, but Sarge had taken them all, either to keep himself cool or to build some contraption they didn't need. "It'll be cooler outside," Grif said. "If there's any breeze at all it's got to be."

"Yeah." Simmons sighed. "I guess we'll just sit on the roof for a while."

"The ground would be cooler," Grif said.

Simmons made a face. "But grass is itchy."

"So I'll take my blanket," Grif said. He gathered up the blanket from his bed in a ball. "Come on. Get yours."

"Okay." Simmons took the blanket off his bed, and they went outside.

Grif found them a spot with some shade and helped spread their blankets out on the ground. "There. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's getting comfortable."

"Thanks," Simmons said. He kept saying the word like he was surprised.

Grif lay down on his blanket and crossed his arms behind his head. "No problem."

Simmons lay down on his back as well, only he folded his arms over his stomach. "It's too bad the sun never sets around here."

"Yeah, but you get used to it," Grif said.

"I used to look up at the stars and wonder what was out there," Simmons said. His expression contracted into sullen, self-righteous anger. "I imagined somewhere there were other planets of humans, better humans. Humans who wouldn't call people names, or break their glasses, or steal their books, or beat them up for their lunch codes, and fathers who didn't hate their children." He sighed, and his anger melted into sadness. "Then I found out it was like this. No one knows I exist. I'm a sim soldier for crazy people who send super-soldiers to my base to kill me every so often. To train them. I'm not being trained. I don't even count. My test scores were too low."

"Man, you're depressed," Grif said. "If Doc was a real doctor we could get you a prescription or something."

"I just can't stand it sometimes." Simmons' voice wavered.

Grif cringed. He felt ready to explode. He didn't know how to handle this.

Simmons looked over at him and changed moods yet again, relaxing. "Then I remember that you're here. It used to be, I derived enjoyment from your suffering in order to survive. But something happened. I started...I dunno. I guess I just decided I wanted a friend more than I wanted someone to look down on."

Grif had to smile at Simmons' honesty. "Thanks."

Simmons nodded slowly. "When I finally realized Sarge was going to be just like my dad, and he would never, ever love me for me or notice I was there, I think I understood you were my only hope. If you didn't like me, then I was going to die."

Not many things could punch Grif in the throat like that. "God, Simmons." His voice squeaked. "If I'd known you were suffering like that...I thought you were just a little neurotic. You know, something a little constructive teasing could fix."

"There's such a thing as constructive teasing?" Simmons said blankly.

"Yeah," Grif said. "You know, the kind where someone really likes you, but they don't wanna say anything because they don't want to encourage you to behave badly, and maybe they don't wanna be embarrassed either because signs of affection intimidate them. And – Oh, god." He clammed up, realizing he'd just spilled all of his reasons for acting the way he did. "Never mind. Forget I said that."

Simmons looked at him with confusion. "You know, you've been acting strange lately. Maybe you better talk to Doc about procuring something to help you with – you know, your problems."

"Maybe," Grif agreed.

"Maybe you have hyperthyroidism," Simmons said hopefully. "That would explain why you feel sluggish and want to eat a whole lot."

"No, I'm sluggish and want to eat a whole lot because I'm Hawaiian," Grif retorted. That excuse had worked a few times before, and he really didn't want to talk about how he self-medicated his anxiety issues with food.

"So it's a racial thing," Simmons said with wide eyes and that fear-to-tread voice. After his blowout with Lopez over his prejudices, he was afraid to touch this subject.

Grif grinned. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry I kept calling you fatass," Simmons said. "That was insensitive."

"Eh." Grif shrugged. "I've been called worse."

"But I shouldn't have done it, because you..."

Grif waved that away. "Forget about it. Just close your eyes and try to go to sleep."

Simmons obediently drifted off fifteen minutes later.

Grif needed a little longer, but he managed. He fell asleep thinking it was pretty funny that they were sleeping outside in what was technically a war zone without any armor on.

xXx

The next day Grif was on his own. Simmons had gone off somewhere with Sarge, and Grif knew better than to interrupt anything Donut and Doc were doing together. Lopez was visiting Sheila. That meant there was finally no one to stop him from sneaking into the basement to see the holographic projection room. He walked in the door, flipped the lights on, and walked down the stairs. "I can't believe they're afraid I'm going to break stuff," he muttered to himself. "What am I, Caboose?"

Now that he was here standing in it, he could admit that part of the reason why he'd wanted to get into this room so badly was because Simmons loved it here. Off duty, Simmons would spend hours in this place. Grif knew whatever Simmons did in here was nerdy, and so likely to be boring, but he didn't care. He wanted to know what the big deal was.

He walked up to the controls and turned the machine on. It didn't talk. Instead a screen lit up. "Aha! Windows. I know this." Grif tried the internet out of habit and wasn't surprised when it wouldn't connect. He closed the program and looked at the files on the Desktop instead. There was one at the top of the screen labeled: Sarge's Stuff! TOUCH IT GRIF...

Grif stared at it. "What? He can't really be inviting me to use his stuff. He hates me." He clicked on it.

The rest of the title popped up: AND DIE. MAKE MY DAY. NO, REALLY, MAKE MY DAY. I WANT TO SEE YOU DIE. PLEASE, GOD, ANSWER A POOR SOLDIER'S PRAYERS AND TAKE HIM INTO THE HEAVENLY BEYOND ALREADY. GRIF, ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? GET BACK TO WORK!

Grif sighed. "I thought so."

He turned his attention to his other options. There were two other folders. The one on the left was called 'songs i liek' and just had to belong to Caboose. Grif was surprised Sarge hadn't noticed Caboose sneaking into the base to use their hologram projector. The file on the right was what caught Grif's attention: Standard Tests. That had the smell of Simmons all over it.

"Standard tests?" Grif said to himself. "What would a standard test of this thing be? Maybe simulations of people we know?" He double-clicked the file folder open. There were fifteen files, all labeled and numbered. He selected Standard Test 001 and waited to see what would happen.

Colored lights came together and formed a see-through version of Simmons. Then it solidified into a realistic representation. If Grif hadn't seen it happen the simulation would have fooled him. Sim-Simmons looked around and then asked, "Did it work? Did I copy me?" Then it jumped and said happily, "Oh, hey." Immediately afterwards it faded back into nothingness.

"Oh..." Grif punched over to Standard Test 002. "These are just clips." He ran 002. That turned out to be a simulation of Sarge. Sim-Sarge said, "Hey, what is this thing?" Then, as if examining itself in a mirror, it said, "Oh, hello there, handsome stranger. Heh-heh-heh." It faded away, the clip ending there.

Expecting Donut, Grif instructed the simulator to play Standard Test 003.

Instead, he popped up. For several moments, Sim-Grif was still and silent. Just when Grif concluded that was the entire test, Sim-Grif took a step and spoke, gesturing. "Look. I know we didn't always get along...but lately...I, uh..." It cleared its throat in an embarrassingly true-to-life fashion and continued in a slightly strained voice, "My feelings changed. Simmons...Richard...I think I love you. I realized it when we were fighting the Meta." Sim-Grif took a step forward and opened his hands wide. "You saved my life. No one ever did that for me before. I don't know how to say...thank you. But I can say I love you. That's easier. And it's true."

The clip ended and the sim faded.

Grif was left standing there with his jaw hanging.


	4. Episode 4

Episode 4: Confessions

* * *

Grif didn't know what to do about his discovery, so he didn't do anything. He just tried to keep things the way they already were. Simmons wanted to talk about feelings now, so he let him. He made sure they still had normal conversations too; they talked about how hot it was, how boring it was, how much of an asshole Washington was, how they were definitely not getting mixed up in Blue team business next time something happened.

A whole week went by without some kind of disaster happening. Grif felt pretty proud of himself. He was doing a good job of buying himself time to think. Because he didn't know what to think. The simulation of him in the hologram projector room had to mean that Simmons had figured out his feelings. But Simmons hadn't said anything about it. So maybe he didn't want Grif's weird, awkward feelings all over him. That made sense.

They got settled in their spot at the beginning of another meaningless day of guarding their base.

"I've always kind of wanted to own a dolphin," Grif said.

"A dolphin?" Simmons sounded blank.

"Yeah, you know, like the pet dolphin from SeaQuest."

"What's SeaQuest?"

"You're a nerd and you don't know SeaQuest?" Grif couldn't help teasing. Before Simmons got mad, he explained, "It's a crappy show from the 20th century. I really liked it as a kid, though, because it was all about the future of the ocean – I mean the fake 20th century version of the future – and having access to the ocean is one of the most important parts of life in Hawaii. I saw the ocean every day. So a show like that couldn't help but be interesting."

"And one of the characters had a pet dolphin?" Simmons asked.

"Yeah, one of the main guys. He named it Darwin, which was stupid, but it made me feel better about my own stupid name." Grif grinned. "They had a gimmick on the show where this prodigy nerd kid made a device that could help the dolphin speak in English."

"Like a translator," Simmons said.

"Yeah. I bet if we had a real dolphin for a pet, Sarge would figure out a way to communicate with it."

"Sarge can't even communicate with Lopez," Simmons said.

Grif laughed. "Okay, you're right. He would kill the dolphin trying to graft a laser onto it."

"I think you're the best friend I've ever had," Simmons said. His voice was practically monotone with contentment. Usually Simmons only sounded that way if Sarge noticed his work, or if he'd just finished cleaning and reloading his gun.

Grif snorted to cover up his heartbeat getting faster. "I'm the only friend you've ever had."

"No," Simmons protested. "I befriended a dog once. He was always happy to see me and licked my face, and every time I threw something he brought it back to me." He paused. "But this is better." He looked at Grif, obviously smiling behind his helmet.

The realization slammed Grif over the head like one of Tex's punches: Simmons had no idea how he felt. The hologram of him had just been one of Simmons' fantasies. That meant -

Grif blurted, "I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to have to say something."

Simmons collapsed to his knees and grabbed Grif around the legs. "Oh no. Please...whatever I did wrong I'll fix it. I promise! Just don't leave."

"Okay, I admit that was the wrong way to phrase things," Grif said dryly. He took Simmon's arm and tried to pull Simmons up. It didn't work. "Man, that robotic arm is strong."

"You're never going to talk to me again, are you?"

Grif worked to keep his voice calm. "You're fine. Get up. I'm not talking about you doing anything wrong."

Simmons shot back onto his feet. "You mean it? You're staying? I didn't do anything horrible that would cause you to stop being my friend?"

"No," Grif said. He sighed. "I'm saying something because it's not fair to you for me to keep telling you all I want to be is friends. I want...I've always wanted...you to be my boyfriend." He blinked. "Hey, that feels pretty good to say. I didn't know how much it was bothering me not to say anything."

"Grif?" Simmons' voice shot up an octave.

Grif grinned. "Oh, come on. I remember the time you said you got G Magazine 'accidentally'. You claimed you gave it to Donut, but I happen to know you hung onto it. And read it. More than once."

Simmons turned crimson. "I-I told you it was just a mistake. And I kept mistakenly taking it out when I was looking for something else. As for giving it to Donut, I forgot. It's not important. Besides, he likes his magazines up to date. It's way too late to give it to him now."

Grif spread his hands. "Come on, it's cool. There are some sexy pictures in there. I can't read anything in it, but I don't have to. Pin-ups don't need much explanation."

Simmons shouted, strangled, "It was a mistake! Can't you just let it go?"

"That's why I thought you were Mexican," Grif said. "It's a Mexican magazine."

"Brazilian," Simmons snapped, unable to let a mistake stand, even in the heat of an argument.

Grif shrugged. "Then there's the holograph projection you made of me."

"That's private you cockbite!"

"You know those files are public," Grif said. "I don't know much about computers and even I know that."

"Why were you looking through my stuff?" Simmons yelled.

"I was bored," Grif said. "Besides, you'd spent weeks tinkering around with it and I wanted to see if you'd made anything cool."

"I specifically labeled that file Standard Test 003," Simmons despaired. "Why would I go through the trouble to make up a file name that boring if I wanted you to look at it?"

"Come on, Simmons," Grif whined. "You're acting like me finding this stuff out is a bad thing. So we like each other. So what? Doesn't that mean we have one less reason to feel bad about ourselves? It would be worse if your feelings were as one-sided as you thought they were."

Simmons turned away. "No. No. It's bad enough that I'm a kissass and a nerd. I'm not going to be gay, too."

Grif held up his hands. "Look, I know. I know. You don't wanna be gay because of your dad and the way he felt about 'girly feelings'. But not all gays are girly gays like Donut."

"They're not?" Simmons looked at him warily.

"No, man." Grif shook his head. "Take me, for example. You guys make me say I'm a girl whenever we surrender, but you know how much I hate that."

Simmons smiled as if recalling a good memory. "Yeah..."

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you don't have to act any different than you act now," Grif said. "Being gay doesn't mean acting different. If you're interested in me, that means you were like that all along. Nothing new happened."

Simmons crossed his arms over his chest. "If we're going to do this then I have to be the man."

Grif stared at him. "What? What are you talking about? We're both men."

Simmons flushed. "Not like that. I mean..." His voice dropped to a mumble. "When we have sex."

"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" Grif asked. "You went from telling me no and saying you were going to pretend to be not-gay for the rest of your life to telling me how it's going to be when we have sex. Why can't we slow down a little? We'll figure out these things when they happen. Before that...I just want a little time to be normal. To do things like civilians. Don't you think that's good, too? Why don't we start by just...looking at each other like boyfriends, and see what happens."

Simmons panicked and blurted almost too fast to understand, "Oh my god, you're going to leave me, aren't you? It's Donut, isn't it? That little slut!"

"No." Grif sighed and pulled Simmons into a hug. "Look, will you calm down? I don't care about anyone except you. Let's just...relax. Take it easy. We've got a long day of doing nothing ahead of us."

"When you said you liked me, you meant you _liked_ me?"

"Yeah..."

"Why don't I ever pick up on these things?" Simmons wailed. "I've had so many missed opportunities! I could've lost my virginity ten times over by now, but every time someone gets interested in me I just sit in the corner and read my stupid sci-fi books." By the end of that rant he was definitely pouting. It was in his voice.

"I'm...gonna pretend I didn't hear that," Grif said. He patted Simmons' back and let go. "That way you can preserve at least some of your dignity."

"Okay."

They didn't look at each other for a couple of hours.

Then everything was alright again, and conversation turned to their scheduled sneak attack on the Blue base tomorrow morning.


	5. Episode 5

Episode 5: Scheduled Conflict

* * *

Grif woke up to the pain and confusion of being kicked out of bed. For a split second, his first reaction was betrayal that Simmons had gone back to waking him up with violence. Then, Sarge yelled, "Rise 'n shine, Buttercup!" Sure, Grif hit the floor hard enough to get a minor concussion, but he was happy Simmons hadn't done it.

"Sarge," Simmons whined. "Don't."

Grif raised his head a fraction to see Simmons standing by his bed worriedly, still wearing a pair of goofy pajamas.

"Don't what?" Sarge asked, sounding puzzled. He was already in his armor and holding his shotgun.

"It's my responsibility to get Grif up in the morning," Simmons said. "That's why you had us room together in the first place."

Grif scraped to his feet. Simmons was about as convincing as a six-year-old with a mouthful of cookies before dinner. He improved on the lie by acting annoyed. "Yeah, Simmons was getting ready to kick me when you interrupted him. I wasn't really asleep, you know. I just don't like getting up."

"You can kick him now," Sarge said hopefully.

Simmons pouted. "You took the fun out of it, sir. Maybe tomorrow."

Grif asked Sarge, "Why would you injure me right before a battle?"

"The blues need a slow target to aim at," Sarge said without missing a beat.

"Good point, sir," Simmons said automatically.

"Thank you, Simmons. Now up and at 'em! Let's get this show on the road." Sarge marched out of their room.

"He's always got a comeback," Grif muttered.

"I didn't want him to kick you," Simmons said, looking a lot like Sarge had kicked him instead.

Grif took a lot of comfort from that empathy. "You know, that wouldn't have always been the case."

Simmons looked away. "I know."

Grif took his wrist quickly to keep Simmons from bolting and went in for a kiss. He'd been aiming for the lips, but Simmons moved his head in surprise, and it landed on Simmons' cheek.

The way Simmons blushed all the way to his roots, the kiss may as well have landed where Grif meant it to. "We gotta get ready," he stammered. "Sarge'll come back."

Grif grinned, satisfied he'd made an impression.

While they were getting dressed, Simmons suddenly stopped and looked over at him. He was still squirming into his zero gravity suit. "Hey."

"Hey what? I'm busy." Grif grunted. He hated the way the material stuck to his skin. It was one thing to be fat. It was something else to feel fat. He hated feeling fat.

"Yesterday, when you said you liked me."

"Yeah?"

"Did you like me all the way back when we got blasted forward in time?"

"Yeah...why?"

Simmons turned scarlet. "Then when you asked me to get out of the front passenger seat because we weren't on a date, and I called you insecure, you meant you were really uncomfortable with me being there because you had a crush on me, and you didn't want me to know about it."

"Yeah." Grif gave him an annoyed look that was more about pulling the zero gravity suit up over his chest than the conversation. "You only now figured that out? I thought you would've figured that out yesterday."

"I was in too much shock yesterday to think about anything," Simmons shot back.

Grif yanked on the material of his zero gravity suit and fought his arms inside. Now the suit was in place, he pulled up the material around his shoulders. The top of it suctioned around his neck securely. "Finally. I hate this thing."

"Yeah...it's not a good look for you," Simmons said.

"I don't care how it looks," Grif retorted. "I just hate how it feels." Just because they were dating now or whatever, that didn't mean he had to share all his insecurities.

"It is kind of weird." Simmons looked down at himself. He was already dressed in the zero gravity suit, but he didn't look any more comfortable than Grif. "I guess the only good thing about it is that it covers my robot parts. When I put on my gloves, then I can pretend there's some other weird reason why I can't feel half my body. It's comforting, you know?"

Grif nodded. He walked to the closet that was his and opened it, then started the process of getting his armor on. After a moment's awkward silence, during which Grif was sure Simmons thought he'd overshared, Grif said, "Sometimes, when I'm lying in the sun and relaxing, I pretend I'm back home. I can even make myself hear the ocean again if I try hard enough."

Simmons crossed the room to get access to the closet next to Grif's. He opened it and started putting on his own armor. But he stopped and squeezed Grif's shoulder.

Grif glanced at him with a small smile. "We all pretend stupid things. Just think about Sarge. Why else would he spend all his time trying to invent things no one needs?"

Simmons laughed, sounding surprised. "You're right. He does do that."

Grif patted his shoulder. "So go ahead and pretend. It doesn't hurt anyone."

A big smile broke out across Simmons' face.

xXx

Fifteen minutes later, they all piled into the jeep. Grif drove, because of course he did. After they'd discovered as a team that he was the only one who wasn't just guessing how to drive, he took over out of self-preservation. Simmons took the gunner's position, Sarge took the front passenger seat, and Donut was directly behind Sarge.

"Move out!" Sarge yelled.

"Yeah, yeah. I could do with a little less yelling. You're like six inches away." Grif started the jeep and stepped on the right pedals, maneuvering away from the base. He gained speed in a controlled way, until they were leaping over the uneven ground.

Sarge turned on the radio. Mexican pop folk immediately blared from the speakers.

"Have you considered not playing music?" Simmons yelled over the sound of the Warthog's radio.

"No way!" Sarge retorted. "This is our signature sound. If we don't have the radio blastin' our merry little theme song, how will the Blues know it's us?"

"That's the point, sir. This is a sneak attack."

"But we don't wanna be too sneaky. We wanna be able to take credit for this later."

Grif groaned. "Just stop arguing. It's way too early to be having this kind of discussion. I haven't even eaten breakfast yet."

"I have some granola," Donut said.

"No thanks. That barely qualifies as edible."

"But Doc made it. It's really good!"

"No. Thank you. I'm driving."

"I'll feed it to you," Donut offered. "Just open your mouth. What do you say?"

"I'm wearing a helmet."

"Oh...You're right. I can see this is going to be difficult to manage."

"That, and I'm driving! Stop distracting me. Do you want us to crash?"

"We always crash," Simmons called from the back.

"Well, maybe this time we won't. I prefer to think positive."

Then, just when they were in range of Blue Base, the Warthog dug itself into the ground, hit a sudden stop, and launched everyone but Simmons. Simmons had the gun to hang on to. Donut and Grif faceplanted. Sarge landed on his feet and continued running towards Blue Base.

"What was that?" Grif demanded. "A pit trap? That's not fair!" He scrambled to his feet and ran to back up Sarge, Donut right beside him.

"I'll cover you!" Simmons yelled. He let loose, spraying bullets around them.

Sarge used the voice amplifier in his helmet. "Come out and fight, Blues!"

Tucker used the same function to yell from inside the base, "What is wrong with you? I was still eating breakfast! Can't you wait ten minutes?"

"See? I told you we should've eaten breakfast first," Grif said.

"Suck it, Blue!" Simmons yelled. "Come out and fight!"

Washington burst out of the base with a series of three explosions. "If you insist."

"Grenades!" Simmons yelled unnecessarily.

Grif decided to stay well back and start firing.

Washington sprinted towards Sarge.

"I got 'im!" Sarge yelled.

Washington avoided Sarge's attempts to shoot him easily. That didn't stop Sarge from trying to use his shotgun. "Hold still, you dirty blue!"

"If you want to improve, you're going to have to stop leaning on your shotgun so much to do the job for you," Washington said.

"Don't listen to him, Trigger! I believe in you!" Sarge shouted.

Washington dodged another attempt to blow him away, then lunged and knocked Sarge's shotgun up, forcing Sarge to discharge the last round into the air. "This is training. I'm trying to help." He pointed his gun at Sarge's head without releasing the shotgun.

"Then why are you holding me at gunpoint?" Sarge asked.

Washington smiled. "I'm trying to win, too."

"Simmons! They got Sarge!" Grif yelled.

Unlike what he'd hoped Simmons would do for once, Simmons instantly panicked. "Oh no! What do we do? How could this plan go so horribly wrong?"

"Um, it's Sarge? All of Sarge's plans go wrong," Grif said.

Caboose ran out of the base. "Good morning!" Somehow, in running up to join Washington, he slammed into his teammate. Sarge took that opportunity to whack Washington over the head with the butt of his shotgun and escape.

"Yeah!" Grif ran forward to close the gap between himself and Sarge, lyaing down fire, and Donut ran backwards.

"Caboose! Help Grif!" Washington shouted, stumbling to his feet.

Grif panicked. "No!" He ran the other direction as fast as he could.

"Let me help you!" Caboose called, chasing after him. "I know we're on different teams, but Agent Church says it's okay!"

"Donut!" Grif yelled.

"Right!" Donut threw a grenade between Grif and Caboose.

Caboose ran up and caught it. "Oh!" He laughed. "I know this game. Catch, Private Biscuit!" He threw it straight out and low across the ground. "Oops. Not my fault."

It exploded behind Grif and blasted him forward a hundred feet. He skidded on his face to Donut's side.

"Why didn't you use a sticky grenade?" Grif yelled.

"I'm out!" Donut protested.

"The ball exploded," Caboose announced. He turned and ran back towards Blue base. "I'll get another one."

"No!" Grif stumbled to his feet. "No, it's okay! Don't get another ball."

Caboose stopped and turned back to face them. "Then how are we going to play Catch-Ball?"

Tucker ran past him. "Dude, Catch-Ball's not a thing. You made it up because you can't remember any real games."

"We'll play Catch-Ball later with Simmons' spleen," Donut called. "Don't worry about it."

Caboose brightened. "Okay!"

"Stop distracting him, we're fighting," Tucker complained.

"Sorry," Donut called.

"Don't apologize, we're fighting," Grif said.

Donut looked contrite. "Oh. Right."

Tucker drew his alien energy blade.

Grif and Donut fell back behind some rocks and started shooting.

Tucker dived for cover and pulled out his own gun, shooting back. "Caboose! Back me up, here."

Simmons pinned Caboose down behind another rock with fire from the Warthog.

"I can't!" Caboose called. "I am stuck."

Sarge made it back to the Warthog and reloaded his shotgun with extra ammo. He took aim and fired at Washington, only to miss again. "Dagnabit!"

Washington ran across the battlefield by himself, dodging bullets. He threw a small, round object towards Grif and Donut.

Grif saw defeat coming from a mile away. "Oh, crap."

The grenade exploded. It let out a high pitched noise, and an electrical shock froze their armor in place.

"Whoo-hoo!" Tucker cheered. "How do you like that?"

No one had time to say anything. Washington threw another grenade at the jeep. Simmons ran away. Sarge ran towards Washington, firing.

The jeep exploded, and the shockwave slammed Simmons to the ground. Debris, dirt, and dust blew everywhere.

When Grif could see again, Wash had Sarge in a headlock. Wash's pistol was against the side of Sarge's helmet. Sarge's shotgun was on the ground nearby.

"Okay, it's over," Wash said. "Surrender."

Everyone came out. Donut, Grif, and Simmons gathered by the destroyed jeep. Tucker and Caboose stood behind Washington.

"You know what to do," Washington said.

Grif sighed. "I would just like to let everyone know that I suck, and that I'm a girl, and I like ribbons in my hair, and I like to kiss all the boys."

Washington nudged Sarge. "Okay. You can go."

Sarge walked towards his team, grumbling.

"How did this become the go-to condition for surrendering?" Grif complained.

Tucker shrugged. "Because it's too hard to come up with new things."

Simmons said, "It's actually kind of funny again now that -"

Grif smacked him on the shoulder.

"Okay, I'm shutting up now."

"What?" Tucker asked. "Did you catch him with ribbons in his hair for real?"

"Grif, do you like cross-dressing?" Donut asked. "You could have just asked to borrow my things. You didn't have to steal them."

"I didn't steal anything!" Grif snapped.

Donut reacted with surprise and concern. "Then I don't know where my yellow blouse went."

Grif glared at him. "And I'm not yellow. I'm orange. God, don't you start doing it. I thought you had an excellent sense of color."

"I didn't say anything about your armor being yellow," Donut said.

"You know what? I'm going to go back inside." Washington walked away.

Caboose started after him. "Agent Church-ington! Wait for me!"

"You guys are pathetic," Tucker said cheerfully. He turned away and went back inside the Blue base too.

Grif sighed and slumped. "Well, that was stupid."

Sarge marched over to the rest of his team. "Nonsense! It was necessary! Those dirty Blues have to be reminded that there are two sides to this fake war: the Red side and the dead side."

"But we lost," Grif said.

"Even if we won, we wouldn't execute them, would we?" Donut asked with a smile in his voice. "They're our friends now."

Sarge groaned. "Donut, get your head out of your unicorn infested fantasies for a moment and listen to me: You can't be friends with the fake enemy!"

"But it's fake," Donut said, puzzled.

Sarge ended the conversation by ignoring Donut's confusion. Instead, he pinned Simmons with a look. "What's this about something humiliating about Grif? If it's something that can make his life more of a hell than it already is, I want to know."

"Nothing can make my life more of a hell than it already is, sir," Grif said, smiling. "I'm still here, and you're still giving me orders."

Simmons glanced from one to the other. "It's nothing, sir."

"Don't tease a man!" Sarge protested.

"It's just...I thought it was funny because he's surrendering to Agent Washington now," Simmons said lamely.

"And I don't," Grif said, playing along. "I think there's some dignity in surrendering to someone who deserved their victory, instead of surrendering to a team that sucks just as much, but got lucky."

"Don't be disrespectful to Lady Luck!" Sarge retorted, apparently satisfied with the explanation. He turned and led the way back to their base. "Let's go home, lick our wounds, and pray that she ends up on our side next time."

"Just another morning," Grif groaned, trudging along behind everyone.

"Hey, Sarge?" Simmons said.

"What is it, Simmons?"

"Where'd they get shovels to dig the trap the jeep fell into?"

"God only knows, Simmons. God only knows."

"They could've ordered one," Donut suggested. "Caboose says the Blue Base uses mail order."

"See if you can steal a catalogue when you're over there fraternizing with your little blue friend," Sarge ordered.

"Or I could just ask for it," Donut said.

Sarge cursed nonsensically under his breath. "Donut, I order you to stop taking the fun out of this war."

"Sorry. It's just that I don't think war should be fun."

"That's it! I forbid you to spend any more time talking to that purple weasel! He's a bad influence."

"Doc? No, he's not. He's nice," Donut said.

"He's undermining my chain of command!"

"That's because he's not under your command," Donut said. "Doc's not on any team. He's a conscientious objector. That means he's neutral."

"There's no such thing as neutrality in war!"

Grif tuned out the rest of the conversation. It wasn't important anyway; it was just pleasant background noise that made the humiliating trip back to their base quicker. _Yep. This is my team._


	6. Episode 6

Episode 6: First Anything

* * *

The rest of the day passed peacefully. They showered, ate a late breakfast, and went about their usual duties in the afternoon. Sarge insisted it was "completely likely that the Blues will launch a counterattack to pay us back for our victory this morning", seemingly having forgotten that his team lost. Like most of the things Sarge worried about, it didn't happen. After a long day of nothing, they ate dinner and retreated to their rooms. Donut went back to Doc's house to spend the night.

Grif groaned as he stripped down and pulled on a t-shirt and boxer shorts. "Why does today feel so long?"

"Because Sarge woke us up at six o'clock in the morning to attack the Blues," Simmons said. "We've been up for sixteen hours. You usually don't last ten."

"That's an exaggeration," Grif said.

"No it's not," Simmons said. "You are incredibly lazy."

Grif grinned. "No, I'm very, incredibly lazy. I won't go two hours without a nap."

Simmons let out a heavy sigh. He got out of his armor and pulled on a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. "You're trying to tell me that you've had eight naps today?"

"Yep."

"Then how can you be tired?" Simmons asked.

"Oh, I never said I was tired."

Grif expected Simmons to snap at him. Instead, a strange look came over Simmons' face. Grif had no idea what it meant. Then Simmons asked, "Do you wanna do something?"

Grif raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"We already share a room," Simmons said.

That explained it, but Grif played ignorant anyway. He wanted to hear Simmons say it. If Simmons could. "Yeah...?"

"So no one has to know," Simmons explained as if it were obvious.

"Oh, that kind of thing." Grif couldn't resist letting Simmons sweat it out for about thirty seconds. If Simmons couldn't come out and say it, then this was just the price he had to pay. "Sure."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"What do I do?"

"First, you take off your shirt."

"Oh. Okay..."

Grif waited for Simmons to pull his shirt off over his head, fold it up, and put it back in his footlocker. "Now kiss me, you dumbass."

Simmons leaned in, wide-eyed. He stopped at the last second. "Really? You mean it?"

Grif groaned, took Simmons' face in both hands, and gently brought their lips together. He mouthed Simmons' lips slowly. By the time he let Simmons breathe, Simmons' face was bright red and hot in his hands.

He chuckled at the dazed expression on Simmons' face. "You okay? Or did I break something in there?"

Simmons kissed him passionately and tackled him to the nearest bed. It happened to be Simmons'. For a split second Grif almost panicked, but Simmons didn't make any further moves, and he realized Simmons just wanted to hold him. He wrapped his arms around Simmons tightly and responded to the kiss with one of his own. He could tell Simmons had never kissed anyone before, so he silently taught Simmons how to use tongues.

As soon as Simmons really got the hang of it he started letting out these loud, plaintive moans. Grif couldn't help but feel hotter at that. "So much for secrecy," he teased when he had his tongue back. "You're being loud enough that the Blues can hear you."

"No I'm not," Simmons shot back. "I'm being quiet."

"If this is you being quiet, you being loud must really be something," Grif said.

Simmons turned a new shade of crimson. "I can't help it. I'm trying."

Grif's eyes widened. "Whoa. Really? Because I am like all the way hard. That's hot."

Simmons shifted uncertainly, wearing an uncomfortably flattered look. "You are really hard," he mumbled.

Grif grinned. "See? This is fun. Taking it slow is the only way to do it." He reached up and ran his fingers through Simmons' hair.

"You take everything slow," Simmons said.

"Because it's more fun," Grif said. "Or I'm too lazy to do it fast. Either one." He kissed Simmons softly. "Who wants to have sex all the time anyway? That's so much work."

Simmons gave him a pitiful look. "Getting blue balls isn't fun. It hurts."

"Aw, relax. I'm not going to leave you hanging," Grif said. "I just figured we'd so something other than sex. Like dry humping. That's a good in-between stage for new couples."

"What's...'dry humping'?" Simmons asked.

Grif raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding, right?"

Simmons scowled sullenly. "No. Tell me."

A wide smile spread across Grif's face, and he chuckled. "Oh, you are going to be fun. I love it!" Then he took Simmons' hips firmly and shifted his own, dragging their trapped erections across each other.

Simmons collapsed with a breathy moan. He said reverently, "Do that again. That felt wonderful."

"My pleasure." Grif smugly rolled his hips with slow precision, rubbing them together carefully.

"Oh-ohhh..." Simmons shakily braced himself against the bed, his hands on either side of Grif's chest. "Let me try." He shifted his hips, rubbing his erection against Grif's.

Grif let his head fall back with a soft moan. "Yeah. That's the way. Let's both do it at once."

After a few minutes of huffing, puffing, and moaning in relative silence, Simmons whimpered, "I'm going to come."

"So do it," Grif said gently. He petted Simmons' hair and rocked against Simmons more quickly.

Simmons kissed Grif with desperate need, moaning around the kiss and shivering, all the way down through his hips. Grif hadn't expected the kiss. Hadn't expected Simmons to be sweet underneath all the prickly self-pity. He moaned and mouthed Simmons' lips in return.

With a jerk, Simmons collapsed on him, alternately sighing and tensing up. Grif was already on the edge. That familiar series of sounds and twitches pushed him over the edge. "Oh, fuck," he said softly, his head falling back and his eyes closing. "Simmons – you – Nnn..."

Simmons shivered and buried his face against Grif's neck, not kissing but hiding. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I should've held out for longer. I just – I couldn't."

Grif was shocked. He cupped the back of Simmons' neck with one hand, trying to be comforting even though his head was swimming with aftershocks of bliss. "Don't apologize. You were sexy. I've never heard someone make those noises before."

Simmons let out what sounded like a laugh.

Grif didn't like the tone of that laugh; it was too much like a hiccup. "Hey..."

"I'm gay. I'm really, really gay. I'm going to hell."

Grif hadn't foreseen this when he agreed to do 'something', but now he felt like he should have. He should've guessed that Simmons would have some kind of meltdown. "No, you're not. I don't think there is even a hell to go to."

"Then you're going to hell too."

"See? We'll be together." Grif hugged him, not knowing what else to do. "Even if it does exist, at least you won't be alone. Right?"

Simmons wept. He cried unsubtly, messily, dripping hot tears on Grif's bare skin. "I didn't ask to be gay. I didn't...I didn't choose to be this way. I tried. I went to all the Christian summer camps and therapists my mom paid for. I never said no...because I wanted to get better. I wanted to be normal. All I ever wanted was to be normal. And then fucking Donut came along and you did and – I can't stop. I can't go back to not knowing what this is like. It feels too good."

"Your parents really fucked you up," Grif said softly. He had a lot to think about now, with all this new information. "Your mom...your dad...they asked you not to be you. No: they demanded it. And they beat the shit out of you until you complied. Just in different ways. But in the end, you have to just be you. Or you'll never stop hurting."

Simmons' crying slowed down, and then stopped. "Can I be me? Can I ever be me, and have...anyone that loves me?"

"Look at me," Grif said. He waited until Simmons complied and said, "What do you see?" He touched the side of his face, pointing out the paler skin and tiny scars. "Anyone else would have let me die." He gently grasped Simmons' head and guided Simmons' ear to his chest. "Hear that? That's you in there." Simmons was silent. It was a gentle silence. "That's you keeping me alive with every beat of your heart. That's not sappy crap; it's literally true."

For a long time, Simmons just listened. Then he looked at Grif with awe. "You're not an asshole."

Grif snorted. "Thanks. Don't you think if you thought I was an asshole then you shouldn't have kissed me?"

"Everyone's an asshole," Simmons said matter-of-factly. "I'm an asshole. I thought being a dick was just part of being alive. Man or woman, human or alien...it unites us all."

Grif laughed and said, "We can't be dicks all the time. What's the fun in that? And we should try not to be dicks to people we like."

Simmons' expression faltered. "I – I guess..."

Grif knew the real problem. Simmons' self-esteem was too low for him to feel like he deserved any respect. "I know you're not used to your investment being returned with anything at all. You followed Sarge's orders without making a fuss about how stupid they were. He still doesn't recognize you as a person half the time. Your mom and your dad, they didn't understand their responsibility to make you feel like they cared. You probably didn't have any teachers or coaches worth anything. And you probably got bullied in school with no one to stand up for you."

Simmons just nodded along, listening attentively.

Grif gently pressed the side of Simmons' head to his chest with one hand. "But as of right now, you can say that someone returns your investment. You saved me; I'll save you. I mean that in every way. You might not've known it, because I'm shitty at expressing my emotions." He flashed Simmons a grin. "But I really appreciated you donating your body to me. You didn't need to do anything more. Whether you understood it or not, you were telling me that you cared about me. Cared enough to do this." He touched Simmons' robotic arm, making sure Simmons could see what he was doing first. There weren't any nerves in there to tell Simmons when it was being touched.

Simmons stared down at Grif's hand, looking distracted and overwhelmed. "You know, that's the first time anyone's touched it without freaking out? Or at all. Other than Sarge making repairs, of course. He touches it whenever he wants." A flicker of anger passed over Simmons' face, and his voice became tinged with resentment. "He treats it like his own personal property."

"You don't have to let him do that, you know," Grif pointed out.

"It's impossible to make adjustments by myself," Simmons muttered.

"Then teach me how," Grif said. The sharpness of his tone surprised himself. He swallowed. "At least then the person touching you -" He broke off. Slowly, he trailed his fingers over the cool metal. He didn't try to touch where metal met Simmons' body. Simmons had complained bitterly enough that it still hurt where he was connected on some days. "I'll always ask permission. Better yet, you can come to me whenever it needs doing and I'll just do it. No complaints. I promise."

Simmons was silent.

"This is all too much in one day," Grif said, making a guess from Simmons' grayed out eyes.

Simmons nodded.

"Do you want to get cleaned up and go to bed?" Grif asked.

Simmons nodded again.

"Okay. Then that's what we'll do." Grif gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

They both got up gingerly. Simmons helped Grif up. "Sorry I laid all over you. I'm probably pretty heavy with all my mechanical parts."

Grif shook his head. "It was fine. You don't need to apologize. If I'd been uncomfortable I would've said something."

"O-Okay." Simmons offered his hand again.

Grif realized with uncomfortable clarity that he was Simmons' first boyfriend. First anything. Simmons had no idea how to act. He had no idea how to act if Simmons didn't know. But if Simmons was going to ask him to do something, he was probably going to do it. He took Simmons' hand.

Simmons led him to the showers, even though he knew the way because he lived here too. There was something pathetically naïve about the way Simmons looked at him and clung to his hand. Grif asked himself what he'd do if he'd ended up with Caboose. Socially Simmons was about at that level. As the idea settled in, Grif realized he'd try to avoid hurting Caboose's feelings. This was the guy he loved, after all. He wouldn't be a dick about it. _You can be a dick to your friends but not to your boyfriends,_ he told himself philosophically.

That settled it. If Simmons wanted to hold his hand, he'd hold Simmons' hand. Even in public. He hoped it didn't come to that, but he would. Even though it would open up a lot of awkward questions.

They showered silently, both listening to the spray of the water and their own thoughts. Then they dried off and walked back to their room wearing towels. Once they were inside, Grif shut the door and they dressed to go to sleep. Grif didn't wear anything except a pair of boxers. He'd gotten too warm for his t-shirt. Simmons dressed in white pajamas with a thin maroon pinstripe running through it, like a bad formal pajama suit. Totally dorky.

Grif waited to see what Simmons would do.

Simmons lay down on his bed and curled up on his side, facing away from Grif.

Grif nodded and flopped down on his own bed. The sun didn't set on this planet, but inside the base, without any windows, it would be black once they turned the lights off. Grif pressed the button panel on the wall. The lights went out.


	7. Episode 7

Episode 7: Fifty Minutes

* * *

Grif woke up in the morning alone. He was worried about Simmons, so he got dressed quickly for once and ran to breakfast, hoping he would be in time to catch Simmons before work.

Simmons was dressed except for his helmet, which was on the table next to him. He was just getting up when Grif ran in. Unfortunately, Donut was there, too, and Grif didn't want to make a big scene for Donut to gossip about.

"Are you ready to go?" Grif asked.

"Actually, I'm going to be helping Sarge today," Simmons said quickly.

"What?"

"You're going to be patrolling with Donut. Bye!" Simmons shoved his helmet down over his head and ran.

Grif sighed.

"Won't this be great?" Donut asked. "We hardly ever get to patrol together."

"Yeah. There's a reason for that."

"I know. Sarge really likes having my help around the base. But it's not fair of him to monopolize my time."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever." Grif fixed himself a bowl of oreos, poured milk over them, and ate it like cereal.

"We are going to have so much fun today," Donut said obliviously.

Grif just tried to ignore Donut's annoying chatter.

When he was done eating, Donut grabbed his bowl and spoon and rinsed them off, talking about base cleanliness. Like Grif cared. Then the whole way out to where he and Simmons usually stood, Donut talked about celebrities. Haircuts, dresses, makeup.

Just when Grif was getting really good at tuning it all out, the bombshell dropped.

"So how come Simmons volunteered to help Sarge today?" Donut asked.

For a moment, Grif wanted to punch Donut in the face. He shrugged instead. "What makes you think this is unusual? He's a kissass."

"Usually the thing Simmons wants most in the world is to be patroling with you," Donut said.

Grif snorted. "No. He doesn't. He hates patrolling with me. I refuse to do any work."

"For as long as I've known you, it's been Grif and Simmons, Simmons and Grif," Donut said. "One of your main duties is knowing where Simmons is. I figure it's because you always do. So how come you and I are out here and Sarge and Simmons are back at the base? This way, you have no idea where he is."

"Oh, I know," Grif said, trying to end the conversation.

"You do?"

"I don't need to see him to know what he's doing," Grif said.

"What's he doing, then?"

"Pretending to help Lopez fix stuff. He hates that Lopez is more important than him, so he follows Lopez around and acts like he could do Lopez' job just as well as Lopez can."

Donut turned away and cupped a hand to his helmet. "Donut to Simmons. Donut to Simmons. Are you there? Over."

"What is it? I'm busy!" Simmons' voice came over Donut's radio.

"What're you doing?" Donut asked.

Grif pretended he wasn't listening.

"I'm helping Lopez fix the vacuum cleaner," Simmons snapped on the other end.

"Lopez needs help?" Donut asked.

"Yeah...I don't think he would know what to do without me."

Grif snorted and gave Donut a smirk underneath his helmet. Sure, Donut couldn't actually see his face, but they'd known each other long enough to read each other's body language.

"Okay. Sorry to interrupt you," Donut said. He turned his radio off and looked to Grif. "I guess you were right."

Grif shrugged. "Meh."

"That's like a magic trick," Donut said.

"Not really. Simmons is predictable." That was the worst part. Grif knew that Simmons would avoid him for at least a few days because of what they'd done, even though Simmons had enjoyed it. Started it. He should've known better, because Simmons was the most predictable guy he'd ever met.

Donut examined him. "You sound kind of sad about it."

Grif instantly sucked his feelings in. "No, I don't. You're imagining it."

Donut took that in. "Oh...things went bad between you and Simmons."

Grif turned away. "They did not 'go bad'. Also, it's none of your business."

"Come on, Grif, let me help. I read _Cosmo_ all the time," Donut whined.

Grif glanced at him. "Okay, first of all, _Cosmo_ is for girls. Second, my sister read _Cosmo_ too. That's how she ended up with seven abortions."

"Well, you have to have sex to get an abortion, so something about _Cosmo _must've helped."

Grif turned around and threw up his hands. "Relationships are not all about sex!"

"Oh." Donut looked at him in a way he didn't particularly like. Even with the helmet on, it had a nasty tinge of comprehension. "That's a sore point for you, isn't it?"

Grif turned away and marched ahead, hoping Donut would get the hint and stop following him. "Drop it."

Donut trailed after him. "Doc is a licensed relationship counselor. He took an online course last year."

"Online schools are fake. Everyone knows that."

"Nuh-uh! This one isn't. They have a real campus on Earth and everything. It's just that he couldn't get to Earth, so he took an online course."

"I'm ignoring you now."

"Grif..."

He would have to be an idiot to answer, so he didn't.

"Grif? Grif! Please, just give Doc a chance. I know he can help. At the very least, you can vent until you feel better. He won't interrupt you or anything. He'll just listen. Grif? Grif...I know you hear me. Consider it."

Two hours later, he finally snapped. "Fucking fine! Just shut up! I swear, you're worse than Caboose!"

"Thanks, buddy." The happy little laugh in Donut's voice was the most annoying thing ever.

"God damn it," Grif muttered.

"Why don't we go to Doc's right now? You don't really want to be working, do you?"

"Don't manipulate me."

"I'm not manipulating you. I'm just pointing out the obvious. You hate work. Talking to Doc is not work. So, you ought to want to do it."

"Whatever."

They turned around and walked to Doc's house. Grif waited outside while Donut talked to his boyfriend. It took like ten minutes. Donut came back out and announced, "Okay, he'll see you now."

"Why do I get the feeling he doesn't wanna see me?" Grif asked.

Donut shook his head. "Oh, no. It's not that. It's just that usually there's a twenty dollar co-pay. I convinced him to see you for free."

"Oh. That's...that's really nice of you."

"Not really," Donut said matter-of-factly. "I know you wouldn't see him if you had to pay for it. That's too much like work."

"Good point."

"I'll wait out here," Donut said. He took up a position by the scarecrow.

Grif sighed. "I'll get this over with." He walked inside.

Doc met him just inside the door. "Please, follow me."

"I know what your house is like," Grif said. "I've been here before."

"That's not the point. This is an official appointment. A certain decorum has to be followed."

Doc led him to the living room, told him to sit anywhere, and then made sure he was comfortable. He stopped plumping pillows and lighting candles only when Grif snapped at him. Then he sat down across from the chair where Grif sat.

"Begin anywhere you like," Doc said.

"Anywhere?"

"Well, keep in mind that sessions are fifty minutes long," Doc said.

"Fifty minutes? I thought sessions were an hour. That's what I've seen on TV."

"First of all, you're not paying for my services, so I think you can cut me some slack. Secondly, sessions are fifty minutes. They're scheduled in hourly blocks so that patients have time to come and go without interrupting each other's appointments," Doc said.

"What other patients do you have?"

"That information is confidential." Doc folded his hands, giving the impression of a smile.

"You don't have any, do you?"

"Certainly. I see a lot of people."

"There are only so many people in this canyon," Grif pointed out.

"While I am sure you could figure it out if you wanted to, do you really want to spend your session compiling a list of my other patients?" Doc asked.

Grif sighed. "No...Not really."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Simmons. I guess." Grif shifted in his seat. "I don't know. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how this happened."

"Why don't we try to figure it out?" Doc asked gently.

Grif sighed again and slid down in his chair. "Okay...fine. I guess we'll start at the beginning."

Doc nodded encouragingly.

"My first girlfriend had a dick," Grif said. "Thanks to someone, everyone knows that." He glared at Doc for a moment, then resumed. "The part I'm not going to tell anyone – and God help me, if you tell someone, I will come back and twist your head off like a bottle cap and teabag your corpse – is that I liked it."

"I'm listening," Doc said in a soothing voice.

Grif sighed. "I didn't know she was trans when we started dating. She didn't tell me. I knew something was different about her. She was hot, like really hot, but no one was dating her. And she hadn't been dating in a while. She was nervous. When I'd take her out to places, she'd cling to me. Not to be sexy. Because she was scared. I thought at first it was because she'd had an abusive boyfriend or something. Turns out...she was just used to being harassed for not being biologically female. The way I found out was when we were undressing each other."

"Most transgendered people want to build up a relationship with someone first before coming out," Doc said.

"Yeah...that's what she said. She said she didn't tell me because she was afraid I might hurt her." Grif sighed. "How screwed up is that? I wouldn't hurt her. She was my girlfriend." Before Doc could say something, he added, "I get it. I know why she thought that way. That doesn't make it not screwed up."

"Transgendered people face a lot of challenges in the community," Doc said. "I'm sure she found your attitude refreshing."

"She thought I was going to freak out," Grif said wryly.

Doc chuckled. "You're too laidback for that."

Grif was mildly surprised Doc knew anything about him. "Yeah. You're right. Sure, I was surprised, but I didn't care. We did it anyway. And that's how I found out that..." He looked away and mumbled, "Dudes are hot." He knew Doc and Donut wouldn't disagree with him, but it still felt weird to talk about being gay. Gay-ish. Whatever he was.

"So you've known about your sexual orientation for a long time," Doc said.

"About ten years, I guess."

"Do you feel any conflict over your identity?"

Grif shrugged. "Not really. I mean, who cares? It's my business, isn't it?"

"Yes," Doc said warmly. "No one can tell you about your sexual preferences or your sexual orientation except you. It's your body."

"I'd drag you to the base right now and have you tell that to Simmons, but I don't think that would work," Grif said.

"Private Simmons is conflicted over his sexual identity?" Doc asked.

Grif rolled his eyes inside his helmet. "You have no idea. He had the worst parents in the history of ever. I don't think they ever said anything positive to him about himself. At least mine weren't there to pass judgment one way or another. His stuck around long enough to beat into him that he was a piece of crap. It's disgusting." He thought for a moment. "No, wait. I take it back. His mom told him it was a good thing to be a nerd. She at least tried to undo the things his dad said to him."

"Simmons' father disliked his interest in science fiction and math?" Doc asked.

"He's going to get really mad at me if I keep talking," Grif said. "You want to know so bad? Ask him."

"I apologize for overstepping any boundaries," Doc said.

"Whatever."

"Donut said that you needed my help because of something sexual," Doc said.

"If you're coming onto me -"

"Not at all. Donut's suggestion was that someone in your past may have broken up with you over the issue of sex. Either the frequency you had sex, or a performance issue."

Grif folded his arms over his chest. "She broke up with me because my sister wouldn't stop harassing her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Doc said.

Grif glared at him. "What difference does it make? I got shipped to outer space. It's not like she'd still be waiting for me. It's been years. I know the whole future thing was just some bullshit test, but it's still been like eight years. Even if my sister could've controlled herself, Yumi would be long gone."

"What brought Yumi to mind after all these years?" Doc asked.

Grif flopped back in the chair and sighed. "I'm attracted to people who're screwed up. I dated people after Yumi, but that was just to fill a void. The first person I've been attracted to since her is Simmons. And I don't think anyone could get more screwed up than Simmons. Really, it should be Simmons sitting here and talking to you."

"Maybe if things don't work out with you and Simmons you could date Agent Washington," Doc suggested brightly.

Grif stared at him. "What the fuck am I doing sitting here and talking to you anyway? You can't help. All you can do is say retarded things like, 'Maybe you'll fall for Wash'. What the fuck, Doc?"

"It's just a suggestion," Doc said. "You should keep your options open."

"You know what? I'm leaving."

"Are you sure? You have almost half an hour left."

"I don't care. It's not worth it." Grif got up and stomped out of the house. He slammed the front door behind him.

"Where are you going?" Donut asked, startled.

"Back to the base."

"Why? You have twenty-eight minutes left. Doc promised me he would give you fifty minutes."

"Leave me alone."

Donut stopped following him. "Oh...okay."

Grif didn't know whether to feel relieved or guilty.


	8. Episode 8

Episode 8: Push and Pull

* * *

After two days of the solid cold shoulder, Grif walked out to their spot to watch the perimeter and found Simmons waiting for him.

"I-I'm sorry I've been avoiding you," Simmons said.

"Nyeh?" Grif said suspiciously.

Simmons shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It's just that I couldn't bring myself to talk to you. I mean, you – we - " He turned away. "We did stuff that we can't take back. I feel so embarrassed."

Grif stared at him. "Embarrassed. That's how I made you feel? I embarrassed you?" He didn't wait for Simmons to answer. He was too angry. He didn't know what he'd expected. But not that. "Fine. If that's the way you feel about it, fine!" He ran. If he didn't, he would punch Simmons in the face and start beating on Simmons' fallen body with his gun.

"Wait!" Simmons wailed.

"I get it!" Grif yelled hard enough to make his throat raw. "I'm fat! You don't wanna do it with me because I'm a big, fat, fatass!"

His voice echoed off the cliffs, amplified loud enough to be heard in the entire canyon. He froze in horror. As soon as he calculated the consequences of what had just happened, he ran even faster. "Fuck! I need somewhere to hide."

There was only one place he could think of, and it was right in front of him. The caves.

"Oh, no."

_But no one will ever think of looking for you there,_ the devious part of his mind whispered. _It's perfect. They'll think you're too afraid. _

_I am too afraid,_ he told it sternly.

Somehow, he found himself diving into the entrance to the caves anyway. No one seemed to be following him, but he ran at a fair clip anyway and took the twistiest route he could to shake Simmons off. Once he'd done that, he slowed down.

Grif found a spot where sunlight filtered through a small hole in the ceiling of the cave. Bats hated sunlight. There definitely weren't any bats here. "Well, I guess I've gone far enough." He sighed and sat down against the wall. "What now?"

He yawned. "I guess until I think of something I'll take a nap."

xXx

When Grif woke up, the sun was in the exact same place, but that was because the sun never moved. He knew it had to have been at least three hours. What he didn't know was why he woke up. "Ugh, whatever. My butt's numb." Grif stood and stretched.

Then he heard it: a faint but familiar voice. "Grif, you turned your radio off, you asshole."

Grif folded his arms over his chest. "Yeah. I did," he muttered. "That's because I don't wanna talk to you."

Simmons didn't hear, of course. He wasn't supposed to. Grif listened to the reverberations in the caverns as Simmons bumbled around. The next time Simmons spoke, he sounded a little closer. "You missed dinnertime. You never miss dinnertime."

Grif was surprised. He hadn't meant to miss dinner. But that didn't mean he wanted to go back.

"Grif?" Simmons called from the other end of the tunnel that led to Grif's location. "Come back with me."

"Why should I? I think I've endured enough humiliation for one day," Grif called back.

"Grif, please come out...don't make me go any further into these caves. They aren't like the ones in Blood Gulch. What if there are snakes?"

"If there are, I hope they bite you," Grif said. "I hope their alien fangs can go right through your armor."

Simmons let out an undignified yelp of pure fear. "Come on, Grif, that's not fair! I don't go into details about your bat phobia."

"You did not just say 'bat'."

"Okay, just keep talking, buddy. I'll find you. I promise. Then we can both go home."

"The base isn't home, Simmons. Earth is home. Unless you can promise me a transport to Earth, don't bother."

"But they say home is where the heart is," Simmons said. His voice had that pathetic whine in it that it got when he knew something was a lost cause.

Grif sighed. "Just walk towards my voice. You'll find me." He couldn't stand it when Simmons sounded like that. It was worse than a kicked puppy; Simmons sounded like a puppy that had been regularly lit on fire. He watched. Simmons gradually appeared. In the dim light Simmons' armor looked almost black.

"There you are!" Simmons ran to him. "Are you okay? You've been here for hours. Want some oreos?"

"You brought oreos?" Grif demanded.

"Right here." Simmons pulled a pack of oreos out of the compartment reserved for MREs.

Grif grabbed them, took off his helmet, and sat down against the wall. "Sit down and don't say anything stupid for a while." As soon as Simmons sat down, he yanked out a bunch of oreos and shoved them into Simmons' hand.

"You're sharing?" Simmons stared at the cookies in his hand like they might be mines.

"Don't question it or I take them back."

Simmons quickly separated the first oreo and nibbled on the half that didn't have frosting on it.

Grif was too busy eating to pay much attention to the gross way Simmons wanted to eat his oreos. He stopped and let out a sigh after he'd had twelve. "I feel better."

"You wouldn't be such a fatass if you didn't eat so many oreos and snack cakes," Simmons said tentatively.

"I know." Grif looked away. "But you still led me on."

Simmons frowned. "How did I lead you on?"

"Do I really need to explain this to you?"

"Yes!"

Grif took in a deep breath and sighed. "In case you're so maladjusted that you really don't know this, you can't just tackle someone to a bed and dry hump them and then break up with them. There are steps in between."

"I'm not breaking up with you," Simmons said blankly. "You're breaking up with me."

"Don't tell me what to do," Grif snapped.

"I'm not! Do you think I want you to break up with me? This is the most awful thing that's ever happened to me." Simmons gloomily ate more of his oreos, pouting at his hand.

"I'm not breaking up with you," Grif said. All the tension had drained out of him, leaving him feeling blank and almost entertained by their catastrophic misunderstanding. Because he was pretty sure that was what had happened.

"Well, I'm not breaking up with you," Simmons challenged.

Grif made a sound of amusement. "That means we're still together, dumbass."

Simmons perked up. "What? You mean? We are?"

"Yeah."

"But I saw you talking with Donut and Doc," Simmons said. "I thought they were giving you tips on how to break up with me."

"Donut thinks we're a cute couple," Grif said wryly.

Simmons made a face. "Yuck. That's almost worse."

Grif ate his thirteenth oreo slowly. "You're right about Doc, though. That stupid bitch did everything but come out and say we weren't meant for each other."

"What? I'll kill him!"

Grif laughed at the squeak in Simmons' voice. "Hold on. You have to hear the story first."

He spent twenty minutes getting back up to the relevant part again. While he was telling the story, he finished off the rest of the oreos.

"And then he said that I should date Wash if we break up!" Grif flung out his hands.

"Agent Washington? That's absurd!" Simmons protested.

"Yeah...but talking to Doc made me realize one thing," Grif said.

Simmons got nervous. "What's that?"

"I am never leaving you. I don't think I can."

Simmons stared. Then he tackled Grif and caught Grif's lips in a crushing kiss.

Grif let out a startled whine and scrambled to find purchase on Simmons' slick armor, trying to hold on.

Simmons solved the problem by toppling them over. He kissed Grif again. A deep, plaintive moan vibrated in his throat.

Grif squirmed. "Ow. Fuck. Codpiece. Pinching me."

Simmons drew back with wide eyes. "Oh. Sorry..."

Between the two of them, they managed to pry off the codpiece of Grif's armor, which was ridiculously difficult with someone on top of him. Simmons detached his own in like ten seconds. Then Simmons flopped down on top of him again, planting a line of kisses on his jaw and chin.

Grif tightened his hand on the back of Simmons' neck, gasping. He wished he could ask if Simmons was sure about this, but Simmons was so insecure that any question would probably send him running again.

"You're beautiful," Simmons mumbled, lips against him, moving against his neck.

The sensitive skin tickled. Those words were so strange that Grif wasn't sure he'd heard them. Then Simmons was exploring his jaw and neck with a gentle mouth, and all he could do was squirm. "Ah...uh...huh...?"

Simmons breathed, "The most beautiful man in the whole world. The most wonderful sight I've ever seen."

Grif petted the back of Simmons' head. He couldn't deny that he'd heard what Simmons said. But he couldn't respond to it either. Simmons sounded delirious. He knew he wasn't beautiful or wonderful. He was just himself.

Simmons' hands worked against his chest armor. Grif felt it unlock. Simmons pulled it off. Then he peeled down Grif's zero gravity suit. Grif couldn't suppress a chuckle. "I feel like a candy bar. I'm being unwrapped."

Simmons' eyes were molten with desire. Grif found himself shutting up. Simmons tilted his head and leaned in, licking and kissing Grif's neck. He seemed so into it Grif couldn't help tilting his head back to help. Simmons moaned deeply and mouthed a spot where his pulse throbbed.

Grif shook and let out a whimper. "God."

"No, but I'd like to be one," Simmons said. He was breathless and deeply serious.

A tingle went down Grif's spine. "That is crazy. But something about that really turns me on." He took Simmons' face in both hands and tipped it up, pulling Simmons in for a lengthy kiss.

Simmons let out a growling moan and kissed back with a reckless passion that was deeply Simmons. Grif just tried to keep up while Simmons explored his lips and mouth.

Then Simmons rocked his hips against Grif's. Grif gasped out a moan and arched his hips against Simmons' in response. "A-Are you sure?"

"I can't let you go." Simmons' voice was deep. If it had been someone other than Simmons, Grif would've called the ripple underneath it dangerous.

"No argument here," Grif said quickly. He cupped the back of Simmons' head and renewed the kiss, running his tongue over Simmons' upper lip. That made Simmons whimper. He grinned and slipped his tongue into Simmons' mouth.

Simmons grabbed his wrists and pinned him. At the same time, Simmons rubbed their trapped erections together with a roll of his hips that made Grif moan and shiver. Simmons groaned with arousal. "You're a cocktease."

"What'd I do?" Grif protested.

Instead of answering, Simmons buried his face against Grif's neck and rocked his hips faster. Grif couldn't help but go faster, too. Suddenly he realized that having his wrists pinned was kind of hot. A blinding flash went across his vision a second later when he came. Simmons lost control at that and rocked himself to completion, crying out and swearing. Then he collapsed on top of Grif in a sweaty, shivering mess.

Grif hugged him tightly, alarmed. He was afraid Simmons was going to freak out like before. "Hey. You okay?"

"Mm-hmm." Simmons nodded against the crook of Grif's neck and shoulder. But his voice was tiny.

"I don't believe you," Grif said.

Simmons sniffled. "You almost left."

Grif groaned and ran his fingers through Simmons' hair. "Is that what this is about? Because you pushed me away."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Grif held out for a moment, but he knew he was going to give in. "It's okay."

Simmons breathed and relaxed on top of him.


End file.
